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literature
The Six-Fingered Kingdom of God
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Literature Text
"Open your eyes and look at the field!"
I close up my Bible and look at the yield.
The scene is north China, a fine summer night
To be cramped in this train, hot, sweaty, and tight.
My team leader Taurus is already sleeping,
He's resting in God--so weary from reaping--
Mouth slightly agape; us other six watch
And humidly wish we could join in his lot.
But thanks to God! We're sitting at least:
The sticky floor is not our seat,
Or even (for the truly tired) our bed
Of sunflower shells and crumbs of bread.
We feel the train grind to a halt again;
There comes another travelling wave of men.
Entering with voices still on outside mode,
Our journey to some hard-earned rest's been slowed.
The train pulled off, and right beside our seat we saw
A little boy of seven clutching to his Pa.
Remembering the Kingdom dwelt in him, this little lad,
We squeezed a little more to seat him and his dad.
The father smiled and gave the seat all to his son
Although his ten hour trip had just begun.
The boy was chattering, chittering,
And fiddling around and riddling.
I marveled as I saw all they
Who by this boy had found a brightened day:
A few Tibetans nearby grinned with cigarettes alit;
A rural man tried his best, although illiterate;
A college student on his summer break,
And us, the missionaries, still awake.
We passed by fields of corn and wheat,
As the little one asked for food to eat.
The father passed a chicken leg, plastic wrapped.
I noticed then the little hand that grasped
The leg had one more thumb than was the norm.
And now I saw the Father's love was truly warm!
The peace of sleep I sought, this time I found,
And as I slept I thought I heard the sound
Of Him who called me here despite my own deformity
Of fleshly nature, sin's infirmity.
And as I dreamt, he held out his hand,
That I should come and with him stand.
That hand is in my mind transfixed,
That rough worn hand of fingers six.
The train lurched to a stop at the city Yinchuan,
For them it was home; for us never again.
The father picked up his boy sound asleep,
With a smile, he left without even a peep.
I watched out the window to see the new dawn:
The six-fingered Kingdom of Heaven was gone.
I close up my Bible and look at the yield.
The scene is north China, a fine summer night
To be cramped in this train, hot, sweaty, and tight.
My team leader Taurus is already sleeping,
He's resting in God--so weary from reaping--
Mouth slightly agape; us other six watch
And humidly wish we could join in his lot.
But thanks to God! We're sitting at least:
The sticky floor is not our seat,
Or even (for the truly tired) our bed
Of sunflower shells and crumbs of bread.
We feel the train grind to a halt again;
There comes another travelling wave of men.
Entering with voices still on outside mode,
Our journey to some hard-earned rest's been slowed.
The train pulled off, and right beside our seat we saw
A little boy of seven clutching to his Pa.
Remembering the Kingdom dwelt in him, this little lad,
We squeezed a little more to seat him and his dad.
The father smiled and gave the seat all to his son
Although his ten hour trip had just begun.
The boy was chattering, chittering,
And fiddling around and riddling.
I marveled as I saw all they
Who by this boy had found a brightened day:
A few Tibetans nearby grinned with cigarettes alit;
A rural man tried his best, although illiterate;
A college student on his summer break,
And us, the missionaries, still awake.
We passed by fields of corn and wheat,
As the little one asked for food to eat.
The father passed a chicken leg, plastic wrapped.
I noticed then the little hand that grasped
The leg had one more thumb than was the norm.
And now I saw the Father's love was truly warm!
The peace of sleep I sought, this time I found,
And as I slept I thought I heard the sound
Of Him who called me here despite my own deformity
Of fleshly nature, sin's infirmity.
And as I dreamt, he held out his hand,
That I should come and with him stand.
That hand is in my mind transfixed,
That rough worn hand of fingers six.
The train lurched to a stop at the city Yinchuan,
For them it was home; for us never again.
The father picked up his boy sound asleep,
With a smile, he left without even a peep.
I watched out the window to see the new dawn:
The six-fingered Kingdom of Heaven was gone.
Based on a train ride I took from Hohhot to Lanzhou.
A zimi is a Chinese word riddle which basically treats a character like a picture and tells a story about it. They are tough but immensely satisfying to solve.
Written for the "end rhyme to end rhyme" contest at
. The meter is irregular, roughly alternating between iambic and anapestic schemes. Naturally, the poem is meant to be spoken, so I have categorized it as Spoken Word instead.
A zimi is a Chinese word riddle which basically treats a character like a picture and tells a story about it. They are tough but immensely satisfying to solve.
Written for the "end rhyme to end rhyme" contest at
. The meter is irregular, roughly alternating between iambic and anapestic schemes. Naturally, the poem is meant to be spoken, so I have categorized it as Spoken Word instead. © 2011 - 2024 Parsat
Comments8
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Overall Vision Originality Technique ImpactHammered results are up [link] so finally I can critique!
Good stuff!
I like a good story, and this one is very original. I can safely say I’ve never read a poem about Christian missionaries on a train in China who meet a six-fingered child. Ever. And it’s this sort of interesting, unique story I want hammered participants to tell.
Stuff to work on
Unfortunately some of the rhymes are quite stilted. Have a look at this:
I marveled as I saw all they
Who by this boy had found a brightened day:
I think this was the worst offender, because it has two problems. Number 1 is using “they” as a rhyme-word. Usually “they” would be unstressed in a sentence, and it’s rarely an important word. As a result it sounds quite odd when you bring attention to it by putting it in a rhyming position.
Number 2 is the circuitous route you take through English grammar to finish on the word “day” <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/w/w…" width="15" height="15" alt="
" title="Wink/Razz"/> I saw all they who by this boy had found a brightened day: sounds pretty awkward doesn’t it? To be fair, grammatically, “they” should be “those”, but as a reader you still use more energy making sense of the sentence than taking it in, which is a shame.Thanks very much for the entry though, and for the very interesting story!
(ps. I don't like star ratings)